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Friday, 7 September 2012

Race Politics - US Presidential Election 2012

In the US the forthcoming US presidential election is causing some angst amongst the black supporters of Pres. Obama. One prominent black supporter the Rev
Tim McDonald says that "It's not just an election about Mitt Romney and President Obama - this is an election about what direction our nation is going to head in, whether we're going to move forward or whether we're going to step back into the past. The past that was filled with racism and hate and denial".

Which is kinda odd, because he seems to be suggesting that going forward, the US must always have a minority (presumably black?) President, and that voting for a white President is no longer acceptable .... but what about an Hispanic or a Jewish President?

Also this kinda says my colour right or wrong because under Obama, black unemployment in the US has rocketed to 15% since he came to power, and a record high of 36% of the African American community, live in poverty. In fact, many prominent supporters delude themselves that his much heralded health reforms, were really secretly just for the black constituency, by bringing another 30 million Americans under the health umbrella, with the sub story being that most of these were black .. they even have apologists who espouse the theory that as black's have lagged behind every immigrant group to the US in the last 100 yrs (which is one admission of social failure if ever there was one), then its only natural that in a recession they would suffer most again (literally rattling those chains again).

Many Obama Supporters Fear Defeat In The Second Campaign

Apparently many of the black community fundamentally believe that most of the opposition that President Obama is receiving is not because of the policies, it's not because of the issues, it's because of race, purely because he's black. ... but of course by that reckoning no one can complain about his presidency. This same PC nonsense pervades the US press, who either avoid the 'Race' question like the plague, or skirt round it such an extent that its becomes clichéd, or a taboo subject.

In some quarters, the question is whether the country is changing from a place where all immigrants are welcome as long as they adopted the ethics of the founding
Protestant fathers, to one where other ethnic identities and ethics are now
equally valid models .... in other words, like the PC ridden UK where all
cultural values no matter how regressive or backward, are treated as being of
equal worth. A dangerous ideology, because the Chinese don't suffer from anything,
except an excess of the protestant work ethic - certainly not the something for
nothing ethics of some groups in the US.

However there is no denying one fact, and that that he's probably the first real black male role model for that community in generations (if ever - Dr Martin Luther King allegedly led a suspect love life), simply by being a great family man, articulate, hard working and being very intelligent.